Investigação do efeito de fotocondução em poços quânticos de PbTe do tipo p

Abstract

In this work, a study of the photoconductivity effect was carried out on two PbTe single quantum well samples, p-type, 10 and 20 nm grown on a BaF2 substrate. Photoconduction measurements were carried out in a temperature range of 300 - 1.9 K and under the illumination of an infrared (IR) emitter LED. The samples presented positive photoconductivity and a persistent effect at low temperatures. The effect of persistent photoconductivity was associated with the presence of defect levels within the well band structure. Adjustments from the decay curves were performed to obtain the recombination times for the two studied quantum wells and, thus, to obtain the positions of the defect levels responsible for the persistence effect. The recombination times for each sample were obtained, indicating that more than one defect level influences the electrical transport of the carriers. In the 10 nm-thick well, the defect level is activated at 20 K and is responsible for the persistence in the photoconductivity of the sample that arises from that temperature. However, the 10 nm well showed a larger photoresponse for T = 10 K than for T = 4.2 K, a behavior that was not expected. For the 20 nm well, the defect level starts to have an influence from 45 K and thus the persistence effect is evident from that temperature. Hall Effect measurements were also performed to help understand the IR radiation influence on electrical transport. For the 10 nm-thick sample, the measurements indicated that illumination increases the concentration of carriers and, for a given temperature region, an increase in carrier mobility. The change in the behavior of the mobility and concentration of carriers reveals, defect level influence found in the sample. The increase in mobility explains the fact that the variation in the photoconduction amplitude in 10 K is greater than in 4.2 K. For the 20 nm well, the illumination causes an increase in the concentration of carriers and a decrease in mobility from 30 K, showing that the defect levels influence the sample photoconduction curves. The saturation presented by the mobility curve helps to understand the similarity between the photoconduction amplitudes for 10 K and 4.2 K for the 20 nm well.